


The Price of Apples in Atlanta

by SouthSideStory



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, F/M, Leia Organa is the mom you wish you had, Oneshot, Rey Needs A Hug, bipolar Ben Solo, meeting in prison au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 23:31:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10955001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthSideStory/pseuds/SouthSideStory
Summary: I’ve once again exercised my utter inability to write drabbles. ;) Thank you lunaplath for requesting this one! I’m sorry it took so long for me to write it for you, but this story grew, changed, and took me for a ride in the best possible way.A disclaimer: I am not particularly educated on conditions in jail. This is in no way meant to be an accurate portrayal of life in jail, although I do hope that I correctly conveyed the nastiness of criminalizing poverty in the U.S. Rey’s year-long sentence for shoplifting is based on a real case, in which a homeless man named Tom Barrett was sentenced similarly for shoplifting a beer from a convenience store. Here’s a link to an NPR article about it, which I encourage y’all to check out if you’re interested in learning more: http://www.npr.org/2014/05/24/314866421/measures-aimed-at-keeping-people-out-of-jail-punish-the-poor





	The Price of Apples in Atlanta

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luna_plath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna_plath/gifts).



> I’ve once again exercised my utter inability to write drabbles. ;) Thank you lunaplath for requesting this one! I’m sorry it took so long for me to write it for you, but this story grew, changed, and took me for a ride in the best possible way.
> 
> A disclaimer: I am not particularly educated on conditions in jail. This is in no way meant to be an accurate portrayal of life in jail, although I do hope that I correctly conveyed the nastiness of criminalizing poverty in the U.S. Rey’s year-long sentence for shoplifting is based on a real case, in which a homeless man named Tom Barrett was sentenced similarly for shoplifting a beer from a convenience store. Here’s a link to an NPR article about it, which I encourage y’all to check out if you’re interested in learning more: http://www.npr.org/2014/05/24/314866421/measures-aimed-at-keeping-people-out-of-jail-punish-the-poor

.

.

It isn’t technically a crime to be poor in the Great State of Georgia. Except, Rey has been homeless ever since she ran away from her last foster family, and it turns out that six shoplifting charges in four months are enough to piss off the local cops. She goes to jail for stealing two apples, valued at $1.09, plus tax. Rey might be entitled to a public defender, but it still costs fifty dollars to fill out the necessary applications, and she doesn’t have it. So she represents herself and pleads no contest.

Judge Dickinson sentences her to a year of probation. If she had the money to pay for an ankle monitor, Rey could’ve spent those twelve months on the street, free, if tagged and tracked. But she didn’t have chump change for apples, or fifty bucks for a lawyer, and she doesn’t have the money to pay for an ankle bracelet either. So here she is, stranded at Dekalb County Jail. Her home for the next twelve months.

Rey has learned two things from this: red apples aren’t worth doing time, no matter how hungry you are; and, in practice, it’s a crime to be poor in the Great State of Georgia.

.

.

Ben has to complete two hundred service hours every year to keep his fellowship. It’s a responsibility he’s used to by now, but the second semester of junior year is kicking his ass. He’s procrastinated himself into a corner, still seventy-one hours short of his requirements with only six weeks left until final exams. He’s sick of volunteering at warming shelters and slinging soup to homeless folks at the Mission. _It’s important work_ , as his mother would say, and Ben agrees, but he’s also exhausted, busy, and worst of all, bored--a combination that sends his mood swinging wildly without fail.

Ben calls his mom, because if there’s any problem she can’t fix, he’s yet to see it.

“I’m behind on my service hours, and if I have to build one more sustainable house I’m gonna lose my shit,” he says. “Please tell me there’s something interesting you can get me plugged into.”

She sighs. “If you’d focused on your hours at the beginning of the semester, you wouldn’t be in this boat right now. What have I told you about using your time wisely?”

Ben grabs his stress ball, considers throwing it, and squeezes it instead. “I know that, Mama, but I called for advice, not a slap on the wrist. Can you help me or not?”

He can feel his mother’s sharp disapproval through the crackling silence. She says, “I can, but I won’t if you keep talking to me like that.”

He throws the stress ball. It knocks Armitage’s ugly, industrial lamp off of his bedside table. The thing must not be as durable as it looks, because its neck snaps from the base.

Ben holds the phone away from his face so he can cuss without his mother hearing. “Goddamn motherfucking piece of _shit_ \--”

“Ben? What was that crash?”

He bites his knuckles until the sting of breaking skin grounds him, then pulls the phone closer to say, “Sorry. I knocked over my roommate’s lamp. Not on purpose.”

His mother hums, sounding half sympathetic, half disbelieving. “Tell me the truth: are you taking your meds?”

_Here we go again_ , Ben thinks, but all he says is, “Yes.”

“ _All_ of them?”

“Yes, all of them,” Ben lies.

“I understand how hard this is, but it’s important that you--”

“That Seroquel knocks me out for twelve hours every night, and I can’t get up the next day,” he says. “I missed _three_ of my morning classes last month because I slept through my alarms. How the fuck am I supposed to ace English 301 and squeeze in seventy service hours if I can’t stay awake?”

“Well it sounds like you need to schedule an appointment with your psychiatrist.”

“I will,” Ben says. “Swear to God. As soon as this semester is over.”

His mother’s voice takes a turn from concerned to suspicious when she asks, “Are you saying that because you’re too busy, or because you’re hoping to sail through your exams on a manic phase again?”

She’s not wrong, but this isn’t an argument that he’s willing to have right now. “I don’t have time for the third degree. Email me some service prospects, or don’t. I’ve gotta go.”

“Don’t be like that,” his mother says. “I have a contact at the Dekalb County Jail who’s been looking for volunteer tutors. I’ll pass your name along to him.”

The anger goes out of him as suddenly as it came. He says, “Thanks, Mama. I’m--I’ll do better.”

“I know,” she says gently. “I know you will, sweetheart.”

.

.

Rey’s new GED instructor is a college student who introduces himself as Ben. He’s tall and broad-shouldered with huge, jittery hands and prominent ears that he’s unsuccessfully trying to hide under a mop of pretty hair. He’s hot, in a stuck-up rich boy kind of way, and he looks to be about Rey’s age. Then again, maybe she’s so desperate to feel less alone that any half-decent man would seem appealing.

She barely talks to Ben throughout their first three tutoring sessions. Rey expects him to disappear as soon as the novelty of visiting jail wears off, but he surprises her by coming back for a fourth lesson, then a fifth, a sixth. He’s impatient, awkward, and sarcastic to the point of rudeness, and Rey hates him a little. He radiates dissatisfaction, and what right does a boy like this have to be dissatisfied with his life?

Resenting Ben doesn’t stop her from looking forward to her GED lessons, though. They’ve become the highlight of her time.

They’re working on geometry today. Rey understood proofs two weeks ago, but there’s no fun in making this easy for him, so she asks Ben to elaborate, give new examples, walk her through it again.

“What do you play?” she asks. “Football?”

Ben looks up from the problem he was explaining to her. “What makes you think I play anything?”

She waves her hand toward his chest. “Guys aren’t built like that unless they’re working out or playing sports, and I’ve got a feeling you’d rather tackle someone than count push-ups. So is it football?”

Hot color spreads across Ben’s cheeks, and Rey almost smiles. She wasn’t expecting him to be bashful.

“I’m a swimmer,” he says. “Contact sports didn’t work out too well for me.”

She likes his voice. It’s deep and resonant, but uneven. Ben always sounds like he’s on the verge of saying more than he should, or perhaps shouting when it isn’t appropriate. It keeps her on her toes, wondering what he’s holding back. Thinking of him is a nice distraction to occupy herself with, when she isn’t eating slop or fighting off that Plutt bitch who keeps trying to steal her shit.

Rey leans forward, rests her chin on her crossed arms, and looks up at him. “Were you afraid of getting hurt? Or did you like hitting the other kids too much?”

Ben smiles, a small, nervous twitch at the corner of his full mouth. “Both,” he says.

He turns back to the geometry book, jots down a practice proof on a fresh sheet of paper, and pushes it toward her.

“Here,” Ben says. “Try this one.”

.

.

Ben tutors Rey every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon through the middle of May. Between his volunteer work at the county jail, a free legal clinic, and the Mission, he scrapes together enough service hours to maintain his fellowship for next year.

Ben tells Rey that, since his semester is over, he’ll only be tutoring her for one more week.

“Oh,” Rey says. She fidgets with his compass, then starts dismantling it.

“I have to go home,” Ben says. “My family lives in D.C.”

He feels like a guilty child who’s been caught wrongdoing, whose excuses won’t hold up to scrutiny.

“You don’t have to explain anything to me,” Rey says, still taking apart his compass. She unscrews its tiniest pieces and makes quick work of separating them.

“I know that. I just don’t want you to think I’m abandoning you.”

It sounds stupid out loud, and as soon as he hears himself, Ben wishes he could snatch his words right out of the air. Then Rey looks at him sharply. It’s hard to figure out what she’s thinking, but his declaration clearly hit a chord.

“Will you be back?” she asks. “When the new school year starts?”

He shouldn’t ask, but curiosity has been eating at him for six weeks, so Ben says, “I didn’t realize you’d still be here by August. How much time are you in for anyway?”

Rey’s expression hardens. “A year. I’ve served half my sentence.”

He bites the inside of his cheek to keep from asking anymore nosy questions, but Rey rolls her eyes and says, “Shoplifting.”

“What?”

She kicks his chair leg, and it startles Ben into sitting up straighter. “You want to know what got me locked up, right?”

Ben nods, then shakes his head. “Wait, you got a year for _shoplifting_?”

Her smile is too empty to be a smile at all. “Uh huh. It was my sixth charge, but it’s still pretty fucked up to dump me in here and throw away the key over a dollar and nine cents.”

If Rey didn’t look so serious, Ben would think she’s joking.

“How is that possible?” he asks.

She tells him about the circus of police officers and courts that prosecuted her for stealing apples. Ben can’t figure out how Rey is sitting there, casual and cool-headed while she explains that she’s been unjustly jailed for half a year.

“That’s--I didn’t know--”

Ben stops. He can’t find words strong enough to capture the ugliness of what’s being done to her, and there’s nothing he can say that will help. He reaches forward to take Rey’s hand, then remembers that he’s not allowed to do that. Touch is forbidden in this place, like all other creature comforts. It takes every bit of his discipline not throw his chair through a fucking window.

“This is disgusting,” he says. “You don’t deserve to be here.”

Rey bats the pieces of his compass across the table, stands up, and says, “If you think most of us deserve to be here, then you really don’t see the problem at all.”

She walks away, striding across the dilapidated library like she has somewhere to go. Like she has anywhere to go, caught in this cage like an animal.

When he gets home, Ben calls his mother.

.

.

Rey can’t sleep. She thinks about the parade of foster families that could never tolerate her for long, the ones that taught her a hard lesson: nothing lasts because nobody wants her.

It was stupid to trust Ben Organa. He’s from a different kind of world, one where there’s food on the table, a roof over his head, money to pay for tuition at a fancy school. Rey knew that Ben would never understand her, but she let him in anyway, and now he’s leaving. Going to D.C. to be with a family he probably doesn’t even appreciate.

Rey hums a song Ben taught her a few weeks ago, a simple tune to help her remember the quadratic equation. It doesn’t calm her enough for sleep, but she feels safer for having music muffled in the back of her throat.

.

.

A long time ago, in a town far away, Leia Organa was a lawyer. She climbed the political ladder up to Senator by the time Ben was fifteen, but he knows that it isn’t ambition that motivates her. His mother is the sort of leader who sought a stage so that she could see the injustices below her and do something about correcting them.

And she has a weakness for hopeless cases. It’s the reason why she’s never left her irresponsible husband; why she’s never given up on her difficult, volatile son.

So when he says, “There’s someone who needs your help,” Ben knows that it’s only a matter of time before his mother finds a way to make this right.

.

.

Yesterday morning, a counselor told Rey that an anonymous benefactor donated enough money to cover the cost of an electronic monitor. She’s released the next day, the shiny new monitor clasped around her ankle. It’s lighter than Rey expected, and even though it feels like a shackle, she’d much rather be chained than caged. She’s warned that if she breaks the monitor or leaves the county, then the GPS tracker will alert the authorities immediately.

Rey isn’t surprised when she finds Ben in the waiting area.

He hurries toward her and says, “I’m sorry I couldn’t come by yesterday, to tell you what was happening. I didn’t expect everything to move so fast--”

Rey throws her arms around him and buries her face against his shoulder. Ben is every bit as broad under her hands as he looks, and it makes her feel small and safe when he hugs her back. He smells clean, like fresh laundry and sunshine, and that’s what tears at her most. He smells well-cared for, and for the first time she’s glad instead of jealous that Ben has a place to wash his clothes, that he’s never been shut away from the sun.

“Thank you,” she whispers. Rey wants to say it louder--wants to laugh and maybe kiss him and shout her relief, because she’s free--but she knows that if she does, she’ll start crying.

.

.

Ben noticed Rey’s beauty the day they met, but he hadn’t allowed himself to reflect on it. She was trapped during their encounters, while he was free to come and go, and there were so many rules curtailing those lessons. Now they can talk without other inmates listening in, and they can spend more than three hours together in the same week. They can spend all day together, if she wants to; they can _touch_.

He takes Rey to his favorite diner and watches her put away a quarter-pound burger, a basket of fries, and a strawberry milkshake. She licks the salt from her fingers, smears ketchup across the corner of her mouth, and finishes her food within five minutes. She scrambles to eat, sloppy and hurried, and he wonders how long it’s been since she had a decent meal.

“Do you have anywhere to go?” Ben asks. “Friends or family you could stay with?”

Rey shakes her head.

He’d thought as much, and it’s almost a comfort to hear that Rey is alone. Ben would be angrier if she did have family, because the kind of parents who could leave her imprisoned over a one-dollar shoplifting charge would be worse than no parents at all.

“You could stay with me,” he says.

Rey looks at him, wide-eyed and tense, suddenly poised on the edge of her seat, like she’s already preparing to run.

That isn’t what he meant to say, even if it is what he wants, and Ben tries to explain. “I’ve got plenty of room, and I don’t mind staying here for the summer. You could crash with until you to get back on your feet.”

Rey scowls and crosses her arms over her chest. “I don’t need anymore of your charity.”

Ben bites back the nasty answer he wants to give: that beggars can’t be choosers, and her pride isn’t worth more than her life.

Cruelty comes to him so naturally; it’s a difficult truth that Ben has finally accepted, after twenty years of trying to overcome it. All he can do is reign in the malignity that lives within himself and act like a better man than he is.

So Ben breathes, grips the edge of the table, counts to ten. “I can help, if you’ll stop being stubborn and just let me.”

Rey won’t look at him now. Her voice sounds softer, her conviction weaker, when she says, “I’m not some pet project.”

Ben reaches across the table, but he stops short of taking her hand. “Look, you might have noticed that I’m kind of an asshole. Do you really think I’d offer you a place to stay out of pity?”

Rey bites her lip, holding her silence.

“Well I wouldn’t,” he says. “You need a friend, and--”

_I do too._

Rey inches her fingers closer to his, until he feels safe enough to grasp her hand. Hard, probably too hard, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

.

.

Ben takes her to the park. It’s startling to see summer in full bloom, the sky bright and cloudless, the air sharp with the scent of mown grass. Rey was sentenced in November, after the trees were stripped bare by the cold, so the last time she saw the real world it was slipping toward winter weather. The jail yard didn’t count; it was drab and poorly tended, trampled under a thousand weary feet, more brown than green. And it was fenced in, the same as everything else there.

“I forgot what it was like to really be outside,” Rey says.

Ben squeezes her hand. He’s been holding it ever since they left the diner, only letting go when he has to. It should probably bother her, the way he’s clinging, but Rey can’t get enough. She’s been starved of touch for so long that it’s intoxicating to find someone who gives too much, too easily, too fiercely. It terrifies her, though, because Ben might want her to give as much back to him--soon, if not at this moment. What scares Rey even more is that she might not mind that.

They wander the park together, fingers entwined, close enough that Rey can feel the warmth of Ben’s strong body at her side. The world looks clearer and cleaner than it has in a long while: flowering, open, alive, and green, green, green.


End file.
